


Two Of Hearts

by swagcat9000



Category: No Fandom
Genre: M/M, random thing i wrote ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 19:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11973933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swagcat9000/pseuds/swagcat9000
Summary: A criminal investigator develops a slight admiration for his rival. What could go wrong?





	Two Of Hearts

He was a criminal, I was an investigator, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Yet, looking around the room, I find a thousand little reminders of incidence leading to now.  
On the table, a single playing card. A two of hearts.  
In that museum, that first morning, the same sight confounded me. At the time, I didn’t know that this would be his calling card, but it would become the signal of the nation’s most notorious thief. Two paintings had been stolen, massively valuable ones-this was an extremely difficult job, yet he pulled it off without so much as alerting a guard.  
Back then, analyzing the case, I looked upon him with two conflicting emotions: disgust and admiration. Disgust, for the crime committed. Admiration, for the brilliant manner it was executed. Admiration was a weak point on my part. I never should have entertained the notion of him being anything but a criminal, I wouldn’t be here now.  
But those times were far behind us, and between gasps of air, another object brought memory to the forefront: an ugly hotel room painting.  
He had been running circles around us for months now. Hell, not even running circles. Meandering circles is more accurate to the ease with which he outmaneuvered the system. I was furious with him, this was the second thievery in the past three weeks.  
This time, he replaced priceless artwork with generic framed prints-the kind you could buy at any cheap decorating store or find in a motel room. They aren’t meant to be distinctive, just placeholders to fill a blank wall with emotionally void imagery.  
He was making fun of us, and me in particular. This was my case, my first major one, and the criminal was mocking me, angering me.  
Is it socially appropriate to leave your eyes open while kissing someone? I made up my mind to close them, that’s what people in movies do, but not before I saw an envelope resting on the nightstand, fancy gold-leaf embossed hotel stationery. Another clue, another memory.  
That’s odd, I thought, as I emptied a wastepaper basket into the dumpster behind the office. A hotel envelope was strange, this was an investigator’s workplace, so I reached in and grabbed it, turning it over in my hand.  
I examined it more, this was definitely abnormal, an envelope from a very fancy and expensive hotel. I opened it, pulling out the note, but before I could even read a word of it, something tumbled to the ground. A two of hearts.  
The letter was a thank-you note, addressed “Dear Informant”- someone on the inside was helping him, probably manipulating me and everyone else involved. I fought back my impulsivity, to interrogate my coworkers would be idiotic. I couldn’t let the spy know I knew.  
Dusting for fingerprints was inconclusive, there were none except mine, because I touched it.  
I sat there in the fingerprinting lab and thought.  
Nobody could find out I have this letter, that’s incriminating.  
Nobody could find out I have this letter, the informant would become even more careful.  
So instead of telling anyone, I searched for a lighter in a nearby desk and burnt the evidence in the ashtray.  
Two things I did do: take note of the hotel, and stick the signature playing card in my shirt’s pocket. The hotel lead turned out to be useless, apparently a lot of people make a habit out of paying for a room in cash. The only thing I learned was that I can’t trust a single person except myself.  
I couldn’t trust anyone but myself, but why was I letting my greatest nemesis pull me closer to him? How was someone as cynical as I allowing an enemy to lace his fingers through my hair?  
I took a breath, I hadn’t realized I wasn’t breathing. I smelled grapes, this fancy hotel room came with complimentary fruit. A nice room like this would take me three days at my job to pay off, but I wasn’t paying for it or those grapes.  
I stared at the painting.  
Whoever curated this museum had very poor taste in still life, this looked like a fifth grader’s art project more than something that belonged behind a velvet rope. I reached over and smudged my hand across the badly painted fruits, then smiled to myself, remembering the numerous signs saying “Do Not Touch The Artwork”.  
I was already breaking the rules by being here after hours. But this place was practically begging to be robbed, what kind of museum only has one guard on every entrance?  
Checking the trash cans every day had paid off, I found another letter heavily alluding to the next target being this place, but I still didn’t know who the informant was. So I was there every night that week, hoping for something.  
I didn’t know what I expected, I had no weapons of any kind, you need a reason to check out a gun, and I still had to keep the letters a secret. So he very well could have killed me, had there been a reason.  
In the midst of my internal criticism of the curator, I heard something, the flutter of a deck of cards shuffling.  
He was there, looking at the artwork.  
“This museum isn’t very good, is it?” he asked.  
I said nothing, he just walked up to me and pressed a card into my hand. I didn’t have to look. Then he left, and just as he rounded the corner, he stopped.  
I was surprised, he was a fairly young man, I had expected an older one. But he looked like he could have been fresh out of a university.  
“You’re the lead investigator on this case. You’re interesting.” he said.  
He left, and I stared at where he was.  
I went home that night and put the card on my dresser. That’s the third one I had, it was starting to become a collection. Then, I laid awake wondering why I didn’t catch him when I had the chance. We were in the same room, we spoke. He spoke.  
In the present, I shifted my feet to kiss him in a less off-guard manner. My hands were still curled against my chest defensively, and I stepped on the lockpick set, he had dropped it on the floor. This was the second time he had broken into a room I occupied, but right now, he wasn’t stealing anything.  
First time around, he was robbing the place. The inner chamber of a history museum, where the prize exhibit was held at night, a multimillion dollar set of royal jewels from some old family. A rumor had spread that these artifacts were the next targets, so here I was.  
I sat there, in the darkness, waiting for him. I had to be alone- no grounds for a warrant, I wasn’t allowed to be here.  
The magnetic hatch slowly scraped open with an annoying, high-pitched squeak. A moment later, I heard the near silent ticktocking of a lock being picked, and the door opened.  
“You’re late, cutting it close.” I said.  
“The grapevine told me that I was supposed to be stealing this tonight, I figured you’d be here.”  
He stepped in, and someone else followed.  
I eyed the stranger. “You don’t strike me as the accomplice-having type.”  
“Eh, I’m new at this, still trying to find my thing, you know?”  
The other person spoke. His voiced dental fricatives were more like Zs than anything else.  
“Who the hell is this?” he near-shouted. “Why are you talking to him like he’s a friend?”  
Before either of us could respond, he stomped up to me and pulled out a knife and stabbed me in the stomach.  
The thief-my thief, not the one who stabbed me, ran over as I fell to the ground.  
“What are you doing?” he yelled in my attacker’s face. “He’s my rival, you’re not supposed to kill him!”  
I stared at the ceiling and listened to the struggle above me, I heard blows being landed and the painful sounds of someone being hit. Hard.  
“Damn it, damn it”. I felt him unbutton my shirt and touch my abdomen, near the knife-still stuck. The pain made me gasp and open my eyes.  
He felt my pockets and took my phone, calling what I presumed to be 9-1-1.  
“Hello, I’m in the museum on the corner of South 23rd and East 19th, he’s dying, come quick.” Before the operator could ask questions, he hung up. “You don’t know how badly I want to stay, but I have to bail before the authorities get here. I’m sorry, I guess partnered work isn’t for me.” He brushed my hair out of my eyes, and I felt a smear of sticky across my forehead.  
I would have berated him for that, but I fell asleep.  
I woke up in a hospital bed sometime later and called a nurse who took my vitals and brought me some mail that arrived at my apartment.  
A notice of termination from the agency. Great, I lost my job. It said that I broke company policy or something by being there that night without permission.  
The morning’s newspaper, it had been three days. An interesting obituary eulogized a John Doe, found on the banks of one of the local rivers. He was bruised as though he had been beaten, but ultimately had died of suicide-jumping off and drowning.  
The last thing I looked at was an envelope only addressed to my by name. The nurse said that someone left it in the mailbox of the hospital, but they didn’t see who. I didn’t need to open it to know who wrote it. Inside, there was a letter that said sorry for leaving me there and sorry that I was fired because of him.  
“This,” he wrote, “is proof that your agency doesn’t care about what’s right, they just care about the money you can make them. You tried to stop me even though it was against the law, which says a lot about who you are.” That made me glad I was out of a job.  
“Anyways, I can’t help but feel responsible for your injury. This letter contains enough money to cover your hospital stay. You aren’t going to face legal repercussions, the museum understands what happened. The case they have is weak, you were stabbed protecting their exhibit, despite trespassing. A jury would be sympathetic to that. Anyways, I’m stealing some Monets from the Capital Museum. I’d like to see you there.”  
In the envelope, there was the exact amount of money to pay the bill, and the requisite two of hearts.  
The second time he broke into a room I occupied was now. He asked me to meet, then he picked the lock and came in, and somehow here we were with his lips on mine, softly suggesting more than a kiss. I was kissing my greatest enemy, I was sprawled on my back on the bed and he was over me in an instant, we melted together again.  
The skylight reminded me of the night with the Monets.  
The Capital Museum was a testament to our city: a little bit of everything. Every form of art was represented, from glasswork to string art. Each floor had different artistic eras represented, forming a radial circle around an indoor balcony, from which you could see all the way down and all the way up through the entire building. The top floor held the impressionism, all under the skylights, presumably UV blocking.  
I stared up at the stars, waiting for my art thief.  
“Pretty.” he said. He always seemed to sneak up on me. He stood near a Monet painting but wasn’t looking at it, I couldn’t tell what he was talking about.  
“The sky or the art?”  
He glanced up. “Neither. The city lights are too bright to really see the stars. And now that I see it for real, Monet isn’t my thing.”  
“So, is this a shopping trip? Are we going to walk around until you see something?”  
“I guess so. I usually accomplish what I set out to do, but I suppose I can abandon that. Maybe we’ll find something nice.”  
We walked through that entire museum and looked at everything. He did stop in front of a Salvador Dali, but soon left.  
Back on the top floor, we went out to the balcony overlooking the city.  
“So, you didn’t see anything you liked in the museum?” I asked.  
“There was one thing I liked, but not the kind of thing you can steal.”  
At the time, I was imagining him trying to sneak out of the building with one of the giant statues or maybe the huge floor-to-ceiling paintings, which was incredibly dense of me.  
Minutes of silence passed.  
“You know,” he began, “you’re remarkably good at breaking into places, for someone who claims to be a goody two shoes crime investigator.”  
“Yeah, well, you’re remarkably easy to find for someone who claims to be a thief. Your accomplice sucks at disposing of secret notes properly, by the way.”  
He laughed.  
“You fell for that? I planted those notes, it was no fun to not get caught, I needed some action.”  
“You never stole anything when I was there,” I observed. “What kind of action is that?”  
“Well, the first time was because the art was bad. Second time around was a little too much action, you could have died. And I guess third time isn’t a charm, because there’s no art I want here.”  
He paused momentarily.  
“So you’re out of a job, you’re clearly skilled in breaking and entering. Might I make a preposition?”  
“I know what you’re about to ask me, and no.”  
“Come on, at least try it.”  
The generator for the building turned on. I knew it ran on a timer, but that meant morning was soon.  
“No, and we have to go. Goodnight. Morning. Whatever.” I said.  
He took a two of hearts out of his pocket and tore it in half.  
“Meet me at the Grand Floral Hotel. Tomorrow night. Give that to the receptionist, I’ll tell her what it means.”  
We both left through our respective entry points- he had made it onto the roof and in via a connected building’s fire escape, while I took a maintenance access door.  
The past faded from my thoughts, but its reminders lingered. He unbuttoned my shirt once again, touched the knife wound- two months had passed, it was a scar.  
We were twisted together, rumorous grapevines, we wouldn’t be pulled apart, not for a long time.  
That night, we made art- the human form and silhouettes created a piece more beautiful than anything he’d stolen. Collarbones and ribcages, gentle edges of hips and ghostly soft breath, and when it was all done, we laid there for a long time, slowing down.  
I could feel his heartbeat against my back, and my own blood thudding in my head.  
Two heartbeats together.  
Before I shut my eyes to sleep, I noticed something on the nightstand.  
A two of hearts.


End file.
